Author: Carley

Hello sorry I haven’t written here in a while, I have been very busy with school, also my father passed away on Tuesday September 18th. After that I sort of let my business go, but I am ready to refocus my attention on my business. I ended up dropping two of my classes and went down to two classes. I am now taking just Introduction to Typography and Introduction to Design. Here is a picture of the first project I did for my design class:

The first project for my Intro to Design class.

I am glad I am still in school as it has been a great distraction for me. I hope to restart this blog and post more regularly. I look forward to your feedback.

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Hey nothing that interesting happened today, but I thought I would write a blog entry anyway. I am really excited because school starts tomorrow! I am really looking forward to going back to school. It is funny, I never used to feel this way for my first degree, that must mean that I am on the right track.

Today I went shopping for school supplies and I hope that I have everything that I need. I went to jo-ann fabrics looking for sketchbooks and I saw this in a magazine:

It looks a lot like what I make (the rock part at least) doesn’t it?

Well this is going to be a short post, as I can’t think of anything else to write about. I am going to have a hard time sleeping tonight, I can just tell. I am both excited and nervous at once.

I woke up this morning with a migraine headache and could hardly get out of bed. After going downstairs and having breakfast I took 2 Advil I went back to bed. When I was sitting in bed I started to play around with my Ipad, and I started listening to some podcasts. I listened to 15 minute craft website tips and she recommended getting the domain name for your website. So I went to godaddy.com and tried to register craftsbyknight.com and it was taken. I called the number provided and the guy that owns the site answered and he bought it for his wife whose father is starting a business by the name of, you guessed it “crafts by knight” I gave him my contact info and he said he would ask his wife about selling me the page. I am kicking myself right now. I should done this first before choosing my name, but now I don’t know what to do.

I figure I have a few options, the first one is to wait and see if he is willing to sell me the page. I am going to do this for one week. My second option if I can’t buy the domain name from him is to change my name. I was thinking of the name “Jewelry by Knight” but this would be a huge hassle, I would have to create a new fb page, gmail account, pinterest account, and get a new etsy store.

I could register “jewelry by knight” before someone else gets it, but I don’t know what to do. Does anyone have any advice for me? I don’t know what to do.

UPDATE: craftsbyknight.net was available, so I am not going to change my name, I have craftsbyknight.net and blog.craftsbyknight.net as well as an email address, which I will set up later. It will all be up by Sunday. I can’t wait. the .net will forward people to my etsy store and blog.net will forward people to my wordpress blog.

Well this is a lot more complicated than I initially thought last night. After doing a little research online today it turns out that there are many styles that are similar to what I do. First there is what I mentioned in my blog last night, boho chic, and then there is a style that is actually called hippie chic, and the two styles are very similar, I can’t really tell the difference yet. There is a third style that I have found that is called indie. Am I naive of it or is this way too complicated? I might have jumped the gun when I said I was boho, because indie seems more like what I do, it is more about handmade, which is very important to me. If anyone reading this has any advice, please let me know, I feel like a fish out of water right now.

Some results from my search on my phone

In the meantime, before I figure everything out, I might as well tag my items boho and indie. That might generate trafic to my etsy store, which I really need. Tomorrow I plan on doing another photo-shoot, this time of my rings and earrings, and listing the rest of the necklaces that I took photos of last week. I will continue to look up teams and post about my blog to spread the word. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, please leave a comment in the comments section to let me know what you think of my post.

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I finally did it! I finally figured out what the name of my style is. I have been struggling with the problem of what my style is for a while now. I like what make but have been struggling with how to describe it. I love re-purposing old beads and using natural materials and making things by hand is very important to me too. I used to sort of describe my jewelry to myself as hippie-chic and other people have called what I make as eclectic, which I didn’t feel describe me exactly but was the closest I could come because I didn’t think that hippie-chic was an actual style. but I just discovered BOHO CHIC!

Boho chic seems to me to be to be very like hippie-chic. It is amazing to me that this style exists. I found out about it when I was I was looking up teams on etsy. I found a team called boho-chic crafters when I was looking for teams to join, which I mentioned in my last post. When I clicked on a post in the team I thought, “Huh, this looks interesting” So I started researching it on google and it was like, whoa, this is almost exactly like what I do. I can’t believe that this exists and I found it! I felt like something had just “clicked”

I have only just started looking into boho chic, but it looks really promising to me. I read online somewhere that the height of popularity for this style was 2004-2005,(I am really late to the table it seems) but I am hopeful that some people are still into it. I have to do more research, but I feel like I am going in the right direction. If boho chic is really my style than many of my questions that I have been having a been having lately, like who is my target market? and what is the niche I want to sell to? and mostly how do I figure out how to categorize my work? These are just a few of my questions that knowing my style could begin to answer. I am going to bed now, but I wanted to post this here really quick because I am so excited!

Today was a good day, I managed to post two items on etsy, I would appreciate any critiques that any readers have on the listing. I am not good at writing descriptions, so any advice will be appreciated.

I spent about an half an hour crafting today and made a pair of earrings. I am pleased with how they turned out. I don’t know what to charge for them because they took so long. the copper discs that I used are $1 each, I bought them at the bead and button show. (I love the bead and button show I go every year) if anyone has any advice on pricing them, it would be appreciated as well. I don’t want to charge too much, but I don’t want to undercharge as well. here is a pic of the earrings. I really like how they look(I took this pic from my new phone):

here is a pic of the earrings that I made today, let me know what you think!

As I said in the beginning of the post I finally listed two items on my etsy store. I find it to be really difficult to name my items and write descriptions. If anyone has any advice, please tell me. I also joined a bunch of teams on Etsy. At the craft party on Friday. Moira told me that I should join teams to gain publicity. I should spread the word about my blog and people will come and read it.

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Hello and welcome to my blog. Thanks for reading my blog, I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think about anything by commenting in the comments section. This is my third entry and I thought I would write a little bit about the jewelry that I make. I make rings, necklaces and earrings. I am planning on starting to make bracelets too, but have to figure out exactly what type I want to make.

The earrings that I make are hard for me to categorize into one exact style. My personal style has been described as eclectic by some. I get my beads and components from old jewelry and beads that I buy at rummage sales, thrift stores and other random places. I make quality earrings that I find to be aesthetically pleasing.

For my necklaces and rings I use stones that I gather from the shores of lake Michigan. To get the stones I go to the beach at doctor’s park and I pick up interesting looking stones. I then bring them home and clean them. After cleaning the stones with soap and water I treat them with a sealant to make them all shiny and bring out their natural colors.

when I make the necklaces I wire-wrap the stones to make a pendant and I make necklace component as well. To make my rings I wire-wrap small stones and shape them into rings. I recently found a dremmel drill at a rummage sale for only $12 and I plan on making necklaces using stones with holes drilled in them.

I am struggling right now trying to figure out which market I would like to target, I would appreciate any advice on that front that anyone has. I don’t know the age range for my products. I believe that my earrings are for women, although they could be bought by men as gifts. My necklaces on the other hand are pretty much unisex, I think. I guess I will just have to make a lot of stuff for the Art Walk and see what sells and to who. I don’t know if I wrote about this before or not, but I was accepted to the River Walk Art Walk on September 22nd In downtown Milwaukee. I am really looking forward to selling there. It is free for me to have a booth there and it will be my first big event, I can’t wait. I hope a lot of people go, because it is a first annual event. I also hope that it does not rain because there are no tents and it will be canceled in the event of rain.

I have been very busy with my business lately. On Tuesday I did a little photo shoot. I only photographed about seven necklaces, but I took an average of about 15 pics per necklace, so it took me forever to edit all of the photos. I finally finished editing the pictures today, all I need to do now is convert the pics to .jpg and post them online in my Facebook page photo album where I will work on deciding which pictures to use for my etsy store. Once I post the pictures on my Facebook page I will post a link on this blog so you can vote on which pictures are my best ones.

Last night I went to an Etsy craft party for the first time. I met three other crafters, whose names are Moira, (check out her etsy store and her blog) Maria, (check out her etsy store 1 and etsy store 2 and her blog) I didn’t get the business card of the third lady, I believe her name was Amy. There was a cute but hyperactive little one-year-old bugle puppy there, it was too cute. I talked to the ladies about their Etsy stores and learned a lot. I was also able to make one ring and three earrings. They hold a meetup every month, and I am looking forward to going to more meetings and meeting new people.

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Hello and thank you for reading my new blog, if you have anything you would like to share with me, feel free to write a comment. I am looking forward to hearing from my readers.

I thought that today I would write about why I decided to start this blog and what I plan to write in it. I should start with the main purpose of this blog, which is to promote myself and my business. Along with that I would like to create an entertaining blog that people will want to read and come back to read. In order to do this I plan on sharing my story. I plan on sharing the process behind what I make and do, a little behind the scenes, if you will. I will also write about my life and things that happen to me. They say you should write what you know, and that is what I intend to do. I can’t be the only one struggling to make my own jewelry-making business, and maybe my story could help someone else. I intend to write at least once a week, maybe even more, I don’t know ahead of time I will have to devote to this blog once school starts. With this blog I hope to connect to the greater crafting community at large and hopefully make some friends along the way.

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Hello and welcome to my new blog. I am going to start by first introducing myself and letting you know a little more about me. My name is Carley Knight and I am a 26 years. I am currently going to UWM Peck school of the Arts for a second degree in art. I received my first degree from UWM in December of 2010 with a degree in linguistics. I finished up my foundations year of art school last semester, spring 2012, and am looking forward to starting my first “real” semester of art school. I originally was planing on going to school for jewelry making and metal smithing, but am not so sure about that now. I am now thinking of changing my major to graphic design because I hear that I can actually make a living doing it. I am going to take the intro to both jewelry making and intro to graphic design next semester and see which one I prefer.

I have been a crafter for all of my life and am mostly self taught. I crochet, knit, bead, cross-stich, do needlepoint, make jewelry and I am trying to teach myself to sew right now. That’s all I can think of for now, but I might be forgetting something. I have built up my skill in jewelry-making that I want to start selling what I make. I am trying to start a business selling my crafts. I have thought up the perfect name for my business, “Crafts by Knight” I have been thinking of starting a business for a few years now, but I am taking it slow and doing it part time right now. I have an etsy store: here and you can check out my facebook page: here I also have a twitter handle: @craftsbyknight. Right now I do not have much content, but am starting work harder on my business and am going to devote my time to it before school starts on September 4th, after labor day.

an example of what I make

I recently had to reset my mac to factory setting and thought that my photos were backed up in the cloud, but it turns out that pictures don’t back up to the cloud, opps. I lost all of my recent photos and all of the pics that I didn’t put on facebook. What really stinks is that I had just done a photo shoot of all of my stuff and didn’t upload it to facebook yet. I am planing on doing a photo shoot today and will try and edit them by the end of the week.